Wyckoff using Sandy’s hard lessons in readying for next crisis

WYCKOFF — Township officials wisely beefed up emergency management procedures after the 2011 storms. But they never expected the hard lessons still to be learned from superstorm Sandy.

And since that devastating blow, officials have been meeting to enhance communications methods, develop outreach programs, and equip and safeguard facilities so the community’s 16,700 residents will be prepared for another superstorm.

For starters, there were the effects of a 99-percent loss of power to consider.

“We had residents on average out of power for eight days, some as much as 12 or a little more,” Committeeman Kevin Rooney said. “Town Hall was out for eight days — that’s a huge issue — and all three fire houses and the ambulance corps building were out the same amount of time.”

The crippling of those potential havens had a huge impact on the community. Meanwhile, hundreds of trees were felled, communications cut, the entire business district shut down, and sections among 90 miles of roads blocked.

“One of the things we learned from Sandy,” says Township Administrator Bob Shannon. “is that folks expect their municipality to have generator power, shelters available, and be able to have town hall open 24-7 and expect it to be staffed, which it is.”

All those necessities are being worked on. But so is a core consideration: Guaranteed communication with residents.

The township has initiated a “Be Storm Informed” campaign registering residents for e-news and e-blasts. The Police Department and the Office of Emergency Management are now using a text message service — www.nixle.com — in addition to the reverse 911 phone call and email messages, Shannon said.

“We have 5,500 homes in Wyckoff with 4,648 e-news registrants,” he said, and “what we’re trying to do is a multi-prong approach: In addition to signing up for e-news, we also ask folks to register on our home page — to register their telephone information for important police information.”

An outreach program through houses of worship also is underway. Additionally, next year’s municipal calendar will expand storm-related information, and there’s a Facebook page for the Wyckoff New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, under Police Chief Benjamin Fox.

“We are having a letter go out to all the houses of worship in town” to ask them to identify seniors within their congregation who are not connected in a technological way, Fox said. If there is an emergency, the house of worship would be informed and its congregation, in turn, could reach out to the seniors on their list.

“We’re trying to cover every potential base,” Fox said.

Subject to budget and tax considerations is the purchase of a new generator for Town Hall and the Police Department. The plan includes recycling the current Town Hall generator for Fire House No. 1 because, during emergencies, firefighters sleep at fire houses.

The town also could use about 50 cots — 10 for each of the three fire departments, the ambulance corps and to keep at the municipal building, Rooney said.

If the small generator at Fire House No. 1 still is useful, it will go to Fire House No. 2, a strategic location for ambulance corps members. Those personnel, too, sleep at the fire houses during emergencies, said Shannon.

Rooney said that “We’ve also requested that our new library, the YMCA and Eisenhower [Middle] School obtain generators; we can’t purchase them. We can supply knowledge and insight, but we’d like to see those three locations obtain their own generators, because they would be something that would be able to aid — be a true asset to the community.”

The municipal government also is interested in buying a large outdoor message board and searching for grants to offset any costs for storm-related equipment.

Fox said the town has approached both Orange and Rockland and PSE&G utilities that supply the town to review which substations feed which local circuits. That will allow the Office of Emergency Management — which has increased its number of deputy coordinators from two to four — to fully understand the grid system and which municipalities are between the substation and the township.

And after all those preparations, Rooney noted, the community could count on a last resource that came to the fore during Sandy and the 2011 storms: its own residents.

“The majority of this community came together to offer aid to each other,” he said, “not from a financial point of view but to offer aid to each other:

“Residents had other residents sleeping in their homes if they had a generator. They ran extension cords across the street to supply a neighbor. They checked on neighbors. We had college students helping out with the ambulance corps going door to door to do wellness checks.”